An Unexpected Gift
by QueenWaffles
Summary: A von Karma missing something? Absolutely preposterous! Franziska thought she had everything she needed, throwing criminals in prison and destroying defense attorneys. But it is arrogant eyes that can be the most blind...


Translation note: Kacke is German for crap.

* * *

Old metal streetlights flickered and shop doors opened and closed, letting tiny bits of warm, cozy air out into the unusually frigid January night, fighting a one-sided battle against Mother Nature's onslaught of whipping winds and blinding blizzards. Phoenix briskly walked down the icy sidewalk, paying no heed to how his shoes were constantly skidding and slidding, threatening to send him tumbling to the ground. He had no time for precautions- if he arrived home any later, Maya would surely inquire as to his whereabouts for the past few hours, and that was a question he could not afford to answer at the moment.

_If only I had left sooner, _he thought, a plastic shopping bag bopping against his side in time with his steps. _I forgot how busy the department stores can get after Christmas, even in weather like this._

A black wool scarf snuggly wrapped itself around Phoenix's neck while he hugged his thin, out of season jacket, whose days should have ended in distant months past. The furious winter wind kept blowing down the hood, exposing and furiously biting the tips of his ears, turning them a pale shade of red.

_Of all the times to get a lull in clients and a few spare moments, why must it be middle of a cold spell and a storm?_

He squinted and checked his watch, wishing that the hands could have magically pulled themselves back an hour or two.

_Seven-twenty, only ten minutes till The Steel Samurai ends and Maya will be back in reality, wondering where I am. I'm never going to get home in ten minutes, at least not at this rate._

He glanced ahead, seeing almost nobody on the sidewalk, and made up his mind. Most people were packed in the cars that crowded and backed up the city streets, safe from the cold and from klutzy, unpunctual lawyers. Fully aware of the stupidity of his decision, he dashed down the sidewalk, breaking into a sprint, kicking up snow in his wake. He had somehow made it about thirty feet before a bakery door unexpectedly opened and a woman stepped right into his path. Slipping on the ice and unable to stop, he slammed into her, knocking both of them over and scattering the contents of his bag.

As he leaned on the ground and put his right hand to his face in pain, he heard a familiar voice.

"Phoenix Wright! Can a fool like you not even walk like a normal human being?"

The frazzled lawyer picked his head up to seen noneother than Franziska von Karma, beginning to get up from where she had fallen. She wore a poofy black and gold jacket similar to her signature vest, and off her shoulder hung a white, glitzy purse.

"Oh, Miss von Karma!" He spoke in an embarrassed tone, "I'm so sorry! Are you alright?" He slowly stood up, reaching to pick up the contents of his bag out of the snow drifts.

"I _was _ perfectly fine," she snapped, brushing snow out of her hair and rubbing a scratch on her cheek, "until a certain somebody came along." She picked up one of Phoenix's purchases off the ground, giving it a suspicious and critical glare.

"Once again, I'm sorry. I needed to get home very quickly, and, well, perhaps I did not go about it the best way." He sheepishly adjusted his scarf and leaned on a nearby bench to ensure he wouldn't fall again. "B-but what are you doing out in weather like this? It's like the Arctic out here." He was trying to play it safe, trying to avoid to dawn of the dreaded whip.

However, Franziska ignored him, all her attention focused on what she held in her hand. "What is this tomfoolery?" She demanded, holding out a copy of _Pokemon X, _withdrawing her whip from her purse and cracking it across Phoenix's torso.

"Ow ow ow!" He groaned, almost doubling over. "It's a birthday surprise for Maya. I was out shopping for her. If I don't get home very soon, she'll suspect so and start looking for her gifts."

_At least she didn't see the Steel Samurai game._

"Toys? For a girl who is turning, what, eighteen? And I suppose the rest of your bag is filled likewise? Absolutely pathetic." She furiously shoved the game back in his face.

"Well, it's what she likes, " he said, taking it from Franziska. "I'm not going to keep her from that. There's worse things to have a passion for, especially at her age."

"Do you know what? When I was a child, I didn't know what a toy _was._ I knew books, papers, and punishments for failure! At ten years old, I was knee deep in a law textbook, not in some foolish fantasy world or cartoon! To think of doing such at eighteen? It's just not so."

"Oh- I'm sorry, Miss von Karma. It sounds to me like you didn't have much of a childhood." He knew that remark was asking for trouble, but he couldn't help it. For one of the first times in his life, he actually felt bad for Franziska. Years as a child should be spent...being a child...and enjoying yourself. The lack of a childhood was the lack of a lot.

"Don't be sorry! I'm glad I wasn't raised playing hopscotch or filling in coloring books, wasting my time with dolls or video games. I don't need a childhood. No von Karma does. All I need is victory."

Phoenix didn't say anything for a few moments, pondering something as snowflakes caught in his hair and the heat of their discussion managed to alleviate winter's chill. Then he took the game back out of the bag and put it in Franziska's gloved hand. "Here, take it. Everyone deserves a childhood. I can always make time to pick Maya up another."

She looked at it with disgust, whipped his wrists, and returned her trusty partner to her purse. "Are you kidding me? Right after I told you I have no interest in this _kacke_?

He stumbled and plopped down on the bench in pain, light from one of the streetlamps showing a shallow cut where the whip had hit. "Ouch! Please don't do that again, Franziska," he begged. "Please. All I am saying is give it a chance. There's a lot of things we don't expect ourselves to like, yet we end up doing so." He set down his bag for a moment and began to pull something out of his jacket pocket.

"Mr. Wright, I know what I like, and this is certainly not and never will be it."

But this time, it was Phoenix who was not listening, instead placing in her free hand a black 3DS. "It's-," He was about to say _mine, _but then quickly said _a friend's _instead. "They probably won't mind if you borrow it."

"No," she chided, pushing the two objects back at him. "Stop this foolishness before I whip you again."

"Just give it _one _chance. I insist. There's nothing wrong with enjoying yourself." He got up from the bench and grabbed his bag, ready to give a farewell.

Franziska huffed, shook her head, and looked back up at him. "Fine. I'll do it to show you how silly and stupid of things these are, and to show myself how smart I was to grow up without this baubble. You can expect an especially brutal whipping the next time we meet." She slipped both items into her purse and angrily crossed her arms, shaking off the snow that had accumulated on them, her cheeks a rosy red. The cold was becoming unbearable.

Phoenix nodded, ignoring her threat and confident in what he had done. "Well, I ought to be leaving now. I know I won't be making it home in time."

_But if it means maybe, just maybe, I gave her an opportunity she never knew she missed out on, then I'm okay with that._

_"_You're a hopelessly lost fool, Phoenix Wright," she called to him as he headed down the lonely sidewalk, this time at a more sensible pace. Luckily for Franziska, her apartment was only a very short distance from the bakery; she arrived home in only a minute.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," she scolded herself, hanging her coat in a large armoire and putting a pot of water on the stove to boil. Minutes later, she had fixed herself a cup of tea and sat down in a leather recliner, taking the copy of _Pokemon X _out of its case and popping it into the 3DS, turning on a table lamp next to the chair.

_What is that hideous frog? _She thought as the game started. _And that brown, thornbush thing? Why are all these people talking to me? Phoenix, this is atrocious. I hope you know that I'll prove you wrong!_

_Hm? That...fox. It's actually...sort of...cute. Do I get one?_

She felt a spark inside of her. Of what, she wasn't sure; it was very unfamiliar, something completely foreign. It almost felt like a memory, except it couldn't possibly have been. Something that she should have felt, not just now, but also a long time ago, yet never had. Something that had been missing all this time.

It had come late, incredibly late, but it came after all.

_I can give it a nickname too?_

Franziska looked over at a clock sitting on the table, seeing to her surprise that it was half past midnight. Her eyelids drooped heavily and she yawned.

_This late already? _She thought. _It wasn't even eight o'clock when I came home..._

She shut the 3DS, set it on the table, and headed to her room to get changed and go to bed, feeling not only exhaustion, but something that didn't come after all the times her father praised her when she recited methods and procedures from books, or when she mercilessly crushed her opponents in court. It was some sort of deep, joyous closure, when someone found something they thought was gone forever. It was only a fragment of it, for there were countless other things yet to experience, but it was a start to reclaiming what she had never known was lost. Laying down in bed and pulling up the covers, she had only one thought in her mind.

_Thank you, Phoenix Wright. _


End file.
